


Vignettes inspired by Avengers Endgame

by LadyAnneNeville



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Character studies, F/M, Missing Moments, Vignettes, oneshots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-25
Packaged: 2020-01-31 18:56:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,665
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18597406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadyAnneNeville/pseuds/LadyAnneNeville
Summary: This will be a series of stand alone pieces that fit in with the new Avengers Endgame movie. I have chosen not to use archive warnings to avoid giving spoilers. Similarly I will put the summery of each one shot at the beginning of each chapter for the next week or so until a reasonable amount of time has passed after the film comes out for the same reason. Obviously if you are avoiding spoilers, don't read this until you have seen the film.





	Vignettes inspired by Avengers Endgame

**Author's Note:**

> The immediate aftermath of Tony Stark's death from the perspective of Pepper Potts. She was so strong for him, but now she needs to grieve. Also I am british so I use british spelling, however I have made an effort to use american words if they differ when characters are speaking. Please let me know what you think. I sobbed solidly for about four hours while I wrote this, I kept having to take breaks and come back because I was crying too hard.

Pepper doesn’t burst into tears on the battlefield, as she comforts her dying husband. She doesn’t breakdown in the face of Rhodey’s stoic tears of Peter’s barely restrained sixteen-year-old grief. She doesn’t allow herself to think of Morgan, and how to tell her. 

She watches almost clinically as a stretcher is found from somewhere, a portal opened, and Tony is carried through, as though in state, by others. Not her, not yet. The last time she reached out to touch him he had still been alive, if only just, and after the life had left him she could not find the strength within her to prolong the contact. She walks alongside the stretcher, painfully aware that everyone carrying it- Rhodey, Peter, Nebula, Steve, Thor, Clint- had lost him too. 

As she passes through the portal, held open by a stoic and solemn Dr Strange, a part of her recognises this space as the New York Sanctum. She had visited it, once or twice, in those hellish few weeks before Tony returned from space, when she didn’t know if he was alive or dead. Five years later and faced with the immutable knowledge of Tony’s death, she understands what a blessing that uncertainty was, because within uncertainty was hope.

Tony is carried through a door and laid on a single bed in a small, impersonal room. It is probably kept for any sorcerers who need to stay at the sanctum for a while but are not permanent residents. The room feels unbearably crowded with so many people. Peter looks to be shaking apart in his efforts to keep his sobs to himself and Rhodey looks utterly lost. She cannot keep face in front of all these people for long now, and deep down she knows that she doesn’t need to. She has never been one for public displays of emotion though, and the only person here she is close enough to be willing to break down in front of is Rhodey. Once there had also been Natasha, a steadfast presence in the early days of the avengers, providing female support and companionship as well as insight into the life that Pepper was in sore and desperate need of. 

But Natasha wasn’t here either. Tony had arrived back unexpectedly, using the armour. Choosing to stay the night after they had returned from the time heist. He played with Morgan and kept a brave face but something was wrong. After they had put their beautiful daughter to bed, together, they had come downstairs, and he had broken down, sobbing into her shoulder at the loss of his friend. A grief shared is only a grief halved if it is a small one, and Natasha’s loss was anything but small to either of them.

“I would like sometime alone with my husband.” Pepper said, it was not an unkind tone, but it was crystal clear. The room quickly emptied, Peter giving her a quick, damp hug as he passed her, not looking her in the eye, and Rhodey squeezed her shoulder.

They were alone, finally. Here was Tony. Once he had been Mr Stark to her, and the name was still almost a pet name rather than a formalisation. He had seen something in her that no one else had, and now two decades ago when she was still a young woman he had pulled her into his axis of genius and she had never quite been able to let him go. She would have to now.

Of course Tony would disagree with that narrative. To Tony it was Pepper who was the genius, who was the incredible one, organizing his life without imposing on how he wished to live it at first, and then taking his company from strength to strength as CEO. For someone who in some ways was so arrogant, he had never truly understood his own worth. 

She notices, with some detachment, that she is still wearing the rescue armour that tony lovingly crafted for her, to keep her safe. She murmurs the command to Friday and steps out of the suit. Without the support of the armour her legs suddenly feel shaky, and she takes the couple of steps necessary to perch on the edge to the single bed that holds the body of her husband. She carefully, as if he were made of glass, takes his hand between both of hers. It is still slightly warm. Of course it is. An hour ago he was fighting fiercely with life still vibrantly within him. With some detachment she notices that she is trembling.

Pepper gently brushes one of her hands over his hairline, the other still holding his securely. She bends to kiss him. To kiss his body. 

He doesn’t kiss back. This should not be a surprise to her. She knows he is dead. She knows this is just his body. But Tony has never not kissed her back. Never, not even the gentle kiss she sometimes wakes him up with.

A sound emerges from her throat that she does not recognise, and without warning she is sobbing. She cannot breathe, and somehow she is draped over Tony and clinging to him. Tears race down her face, leaving burning streams that swiftly become completely indistinguishable from all the other burning streams. Her body aches with fatigue, and exertion and grief. She doesn’t spare a thought for how loud she’s being. Her entire universe has shrunk down to her and the man on the bed who she cannot quite accept is now just a body. 

It is so extremely unfair, and Pepper who has always been so reasonable finds her screaming in rage at the fact that Tony had to be the one to die. At the fact that Morgan must now grow up without a father. That she must be the one to explain to a four-year-old why her Daddy isn’t coming home.

Hands are suddenly on her shoulders lifting her up away from Tony and she hits out at the person holding her who restrains her calmly until she recognises the soft voice in her ear as Rhodey, and allows him to support her as they sink to the floor and she sobs into his shoulder, feeling his tears soak her hair, his body shaking too in quieter but still uncontrollable sobs.

As her sobs gradually subside into something more manageable, she is glad that Rhodey isn’t being stoic for her. That he is crying too. She doesn’t think she could have born it if he was. Rhodey had known Tony for a decade longer than she had after all. She realises that she ended up curled in his lap, and suddenly feels as though she’s betraying Tony for a moment, although the feeling leaves as soon as it arrives. She still pulls away, so that they end up sat shoulder to shoulder on the floor against the wall of the small room. Through the window the sun is just beginning to set. The entry of Thanos’ forces made the sky such an unnatural colour that she had almost forgotten it was the middle of the day when the battle began.

“How long?” She asked. Her voice was hoarse and painful.

“We brought him here about three hours ago. You were alone with him for nearly half an hour before I heard you crying. I left you for a bit, assuming you wanted to be alone, but I couldn’t do that for long.”

Pepper nods. Part of her still doesn’t feel like this is really happening. Rhodey speaks again.

“I contacted Happy. I told him. He’s got one of the Stark Industries drivers to bring him and Morgan to New York. They should be here in about an hour. Morgan doesn’t know yet, she’s only been told she’s coming to see you. I can tell her, or Happy will if you want him to, but we thought you might want to be the one to tell her.”

“Thank you. It should be me.” Pepper’s voice was remarkably calm. “She won’t understand, she’s only four.”

“She will eventually, and if she sees him that might help?”

“Only if she wants to.” Pepper’s reply was short. Then she looked at Tony again. Somehow, in the time she had spent crying, what illusion of life or sleep his body may have had had left him. She pulled in a ragged breathe.

“We should clean up his body, get him fresh clothes. She shouldn’t see him like this, dusty and… from battle.” Her voice broke again as fresh tears came down her face.

“We will. Do you want to do it?” Rhodey asked her. Pepper nodded tightly, breathe still coming in panicked little gasps.

“Okay, but first you need to drink some water, no arguments you’re dehydrated. Then you need to take a shower, and put some fresh clothes on. I’ll find some clothes for him, and I’ll help you make him presentable for Morgan.” 

Pepper nods again, feeling her chest rise and fall swiftly with suppressed sobs.

“I think it might help Peter to work with us to do that, to help him realise, he’s just a kid too. I can’t promise he’ll keep it together though. Would that be okay?” Rhodey asks, his voice soft and gentle, like speaking to a trauma victim. It doesn’t feel patronising though.

“That’s fine.” Pepper chokes out.

“Okay, if you’re not ready to see Morgan tonight. We can handle it. You can have the night to pull yourself together and tell her in the morning?”

“No.” Suddenly the steel she uses in her voice to cow boardrooms and business rivals returns. “She’s my baby, and she’s lost her father today. I have to be strong for her. I won’t let her lose her mother to grief too. And it would be cruel to delay telling her.” 

Rhodey nods and gently guides her out of the room and to a bathroom. Somehow there are already clothes, her clothes she notes, folded neatly on the closed toilet lid. There is a towel on the rail and toiletries in the shower as well as a bottle of water. 

When she returns to the room, clean and feeling a little more balanced. Peter is on the bed. He had been hugging Tony’s body, he quickly tries to wipe his tears away.

“You don’t have to hide your tears for me Peter, you were his kid.” Peter nods, and they set to the task ahead.

There is something therapeutic about gently cleaning the dust from the battle off his body. It is the beginnings of understanding that he is gone. When they finish, they stay in the room looking at him until Morgan arrives. He looks peaceful, but Pepper knows he doesn’t look as though he could be sleeping, for he was never so still when he slept. It took her years to get used to that. And she knows that Morgan will know the difference.

She walks downstairs, belatedly realising that she never put shoes back on, to find Morgan holding the hand of a stoic Happy. He lets her go and she kneels to sweep her daughter into her arms, press her nose into her hair and breathe in the scent of her little girl.

“Hi Mommy.” She says.

“Hi Morgan.” Pepper responds, unable suddenly to say any of the nicknames they have for her because they were all coined by Tony.

She carries Morgan to a settee and sits down with her on her lap.

“Morgan, do you remember what Mommy was going to do?” She asks.

“You were going to help Daddy and the Avengers fight Thanos to save the world.” Morgan responds. Tony had been adamant that they would never lie to their daughter, not even about Santa Claus, and definitely not about where they were going. Not when there was a possibility they wouldn’t come back.

“That’s right. And your Daddy was the bravest most amazing man there. He won. He did it so you and I and everyone on earth could be safe. But he died doing it.” She choked off at the last word and tears streamed down her face again.

“No no no no no” Morgan was saying. The child got up and ran only to be scooped up by her Uncle Happy as she fled.

“Bring him back! Bring him back! I want Daddy.” The screams were out of character for Morgan, she had never had to scream that she wanted something because with Tony as her doting father she had never wanted for anything. Happy held the child until she was a little calmer, when he handed her over to Pepper who hugged her tightly against herself. Remembering just a couple of weeks prior when she had sat on Tony’s lap like that, having been sent to ‘rescue’ him from the Avengers. They had gone over the concept of death when Tony talked about Peter. Which was useful, except that Morgan knew that Tony was trying to bring Peter back.

When Morgan was finally quiet again. Pepper spoke.

“Daddy’s body is upstairs, would you like to come with me and say goodbye?” Pepper asked softly. Morgan nodded and they went up to Tony’s room.

Morgan went very still and very quiet when she saw Tony. Pepper waited calmly. She didn’t know what to expect but what parent could know what to expect in a situation like this. Eventually she wriggled a little in Pepper’s arms and Pepper gently set her down. She walked across the room towards Tony.

She looked at his two hands, one whole, one ruined. Pepper wondered if they should have put a glove on his ruined one, but Morgan was as clever as her father and would have noticed.

“Is his hand how he died?” Morgan asked.

“Yes.” Pepper replied. Morgan looked at his face, then climbed up onto the bed and ran her hands through his goatee as she always loved to do from when she was a baby. She bend down and kissed his cheek and then whispered “I love you 3000” to him before turning round and running back to Pepper, arms around her legs and hiding her face in her Mom’s thighs.

“You can stay in here as long as you need to Morgan.” Pepper murmured as she ran her hands through the child’s hair.

“I don’t want to stay in here. That’s not Daddy, not anymore.” Morgan said, and Pepper felt the fabric of her trousers grow wet with her daughters tears.

“Okay. Okay.” As Pepper led her daughter out of the room, she suddenly realised she had no idea where to take her. First thing was probably to go downstairs to find Happy and Rhodey. As they arrived in the foyer she realised that it wasn’t just Happy and Rhodey, but Stephen and Peter as well.

When Morgan saw Peter she stared at him. “You’re Peter from Daddy’s photo.” She said. Peter was surprised.

“Yes, I am.” He replied.

“Whenever I asked for a brother or sister he used to tell me stories about you.” Morgan said again.

“Did he really?” Peter asked, tears flowing again.

“Are you crying for my Daddy?” She asked.

“Yes I am.” Peter said back, his voice cracking as the tears flowed more strongly. Morgan ran over to him arms wide for a hug. Peter, used to dealing with kids as Spider-Man took the cue and swept her into his arms.

“Daddy said you died. Then a couple of weeks ago, he said he might be able to bring you back. If he could bring you back, then why can’t Daddy come back?” Morgan asked, sobs starting again in earnest as she finished the question.

“I don’t know. I’m sorry, I don’t know.” Peter choked out. 

Pepper watched Tony’s kids grieving together and felt tears streaming down her cheeks. She had to survive her grief, no matter how impossible it seemed. She had to survive for them.


End file.
